Microsoft makes a ‘crazy’ bet on fuel cells to feed power-hungry datacentres

Microsoft engineer Sean James is dwarfed by the superstructure frame that supports servers on the bottom and European-made fuel cells on top at a building in Sodo. The company hopes to begin testing soon using natural-gas-powered fuel cells to power data centers. (Ken Lambert/Seattle Times/TNS)

SEATTLE: In an industrial space tucked off a side street in Seattle's Sodo District, Microsoft is trying to reinvent the datacentre. 

Twenty racks of servers sit in a stark, white, well-lit room _ a familiar setup for anyone who's visited one of the datacentres that make up the humming infrastructure powering the Internet.